United faces public-relations fiasco over dragged passenger

Boycott United Airlines

**United CEO Oscar Munoz apologized on Monday for the latest incident but also blamed the passenger for not obeying when airline employees asked him to leave. Munoz called the man “disruptive and belligerent.”

Just shut your mouth Munoz!

Physically dragging customers out of your plane so that four of your employees can fly (probably free) is the new Great America we've been hearing about, isn't it?

Profits before people. Will United realize loss of market value is also affecting profit? Or is Munoz that tone deaf?

Overbooking should not be allowed anywhere - on airlines, in movie theaters, restaurants, at events, etc. So some people don't show up. That's too bad.

These incidents after they recently got caught and fined for bribery scandals out of New Jersey. Basically, they were running unprofitable flights in and out of NJ, and in one case a flight to a government officials vacation home. It was called the chairman's flight.

The current CEO started in 2015 after the last CEOs were fired because of the bribery.

No wonder United is at the bottom of the rankings. It appears to be tone deaf.

I've never flown United, and I have every reason not to do so now.

The airline industry is cut throat and extremely low profit business. The more empty seats, the more money lost, the more fares go up for the rest of us, and pretty soon, when everyone is guaranteed a seat, the more they aren't going to be flying at all.

UA could have raised the voucher price as some were ready to take the offer but not for $800, instead, they decided to pickup randomly this passenger (a random that will pick up a no white guy if possible) and drag him off so their own employees can seat down, so disgusting. and if you read what the CEO wrote about it, it is even more disgusting thought not surprising. I will certainly never put a single foot inside in one of their planes.

I was waiting for a 'celebrity' to blame Trump. Didnt have to wait long at all.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/10/john-cho-blames-donald-trump-for-united-flight-341/

Plus, somehow the media is reporting that this guy has a criminal record from more than 10 years ago. Like that justifies United dragging him off the flight after banging his face into an armrest?

United + Trump = Who wants to be a travel company flogging trips to the US this week?

All United had to do was to keep raising their cash offer (cash, not vouchers) until enough people volunteered to get off. For $10000 cash I would have got off and that's cheap compared to what this is costing United and what they will have to pay once Dr Dao's lawyers have finished with them.

I used to be a United Gold member but gave up on them after "improvements" to their mileage program made it not worth bothering with.

Overbooking should not be allowed anywhere - on airlines, in movie theaters, restaurants, at events, etc. So some people don't show up. That's too bad.

I agree, Brainiac. If I reserve and pay for a seat in advance, I expect to get it. And If I don't show up, I don't expect to get my money back. Now I know that some companies offer refunds for cancellations, but I thought that percentage of the refund became less and less the closer to the date. So airlines would be able to recuperate some of the loss and have the chance to resell the ticket for more profit. Seems that would be much more preferable to showing up and not getting what you payed for.

United Breaks Guitars, and apparently roughs up passengers now.

This is one of those issues where you either introduce regulation to restrict overbooking, or you let airlines overbook and leave it as is. The airlines have no incentive whatsoever to stop overbooking as it probably increases their takings per flight by a good 5% or so I 'm assuming

I take my earlier comment back. United stock price down sharply. and furore just increases. although note some reporting around how this passenger was not the fine upstanding citizen of repute.

If this was strictly a local problem that was handled properly by management, I could get over it.

But, this has led me to decide that I will never give United any of my money again - and I pay business class fares while racking up about 100,000 plus miles per year:

"United CEO Oscar Munoz apologized on Monday for the latest incident but also blamed the passenger for not obeying when airline employees asked him to leave. Munoz called the man “disruptive and belligerent.”

The CEO is a two-faced punk.

I decided a long while ago never to give money to American airlines... never, ever again. They have made my travels so much worse that I have given up on all of them. I pay more now to never have to touch US soil again. It is totally worth the money.

Wow, United is a classy bunch: http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united-low-priority-passenger-20170412-story.html

I hate that United is part of the Star Alliance with ANA. I don't know who calls the shots with the Star Alliance partners, but hopefully ANA will try to distance themselves from United after this. Flying from Narita to the US on an ANA flight is always a pleasure, whereas my transfer home from within the US via United is always a huge pain in the ass.

I decided a long while ago never to give money to American airlines... never, ever again. They have made my travels so much worse that I have given up on all of them. I pay more now to never have to touch US soil again. It is totally worth the money.

That's fine that you're willing to pay more for it. Ya get what ya pay for. Some people prefer the cheapest flights

The doctor 69, was felon who traded prescription drugs for secret gay sex with patient half his age and took them himself - and he needed anger management, was 'not forthright' and had control issues, psychiatrist found. His wife, also a doctor reported him to the medical authorities for the secret gay sex with 26 year old patient.

Not sure why his private life has anything to do here.

Not sure why his private life has anything to do here.

I agree. Unless that was the reason he was chosen to be taken off the flight, it's irrelevant information, and reeks of someone trying to smear him to take attention off of United.

Yeah why all the racism and smear tactics being communicated through the media about this guy? He is part of a minority group and might even be gay too, seems he would be protected.

Employees of partner airlines should not have priority over paying customers. Period. Whether this was the last plane out for the night or the guy dragged off had anger management issues or whatever. Overbooking should be handled before boarding. t isn't a question in this case of overbooking.

The flight was not overbooked.

They wanted to ferry some crew members.

Every report from passengers said the doctor was polite and rational.

"I don't even understand this, by the way. I've been to 100 games in stadiums with 50,000 seats. They never sell the seat two times to one person, but for some reason, airlines cannot figure this out."

United Airlines' new slogan: "We'll drag you wherever you want to go."

Ok now these robot will be the only ones who will pay and have a hard time getting employed else where, Why ? for not using good decent judgement. No one else higher up will get punish because that is their business model they are following. When the robot where told by their superiors just pick someone and if they refuse, drag that person off. One should just refuse the superior request, No you come and select and drag that person off the plan. I am not and if you sack me so be it. One Job is not that important to abuse a person you known is no way at fault just to save your job. All are all to blame from the top down. And I hope the robots do get the sack and do have a hard time getting employment because they deserve to be taught the hard way.

America - land of the free, where you have the right to be strip-searched, interrogated, tracked, then beaten and dragged off the plane like luggage.

Every report from passengers said the doctor was polite and rational.

Far from it. A rational person would have realized there was nothing you can do but take the money offered and get off while muttering things under your breath.

I'm not condoning the practice of bumping paying passengers, but this guy is definitely not playing with a full deck. What rational person reacts to an inconvenience like this by resisting in a bloody mess, rushing back on the plane and repeating over and over "Just kill me"?

United screwed themselves, but only because they unknowingly chose a nutcase as one of their "volunteers"

clamenza... I'd like to see how rational you'd be after being beaten up and dragged off a plane when you hadn't done anything wrong.

This just in:

Pentagon awards contract to United Airlines to forcibly remove Assad

I see some people (right-wingers) already blaming the victim for his personal private lifestyle and past (whether true or not), seemingly ignoring the fact that he was still a paying customer who has already boarded and seated, while bothering nobody.

So, according to media reports this man had extra-marital affairs? In that case, half the people I know deserve to be dragged off planes ...

Now there's video of the doctor before it happened: http://globalnews.ca/news/3373761/video-captures-the-argument-moments-before-david-dao-dragged-off-united-airlines-flight/

I don't blame him at all. I probably would have refused same as him.

If airlines would stop selling more seats than the plane has, would be a start to solving some of the problems that arise from selling what they don't have.

If someone fails to turn up for their flight, the airline has still been paid for that seat.

If a car dealer sold 12 cars but only had 11, he would be breaking the law and end up in court. So selling seats on a airplane that do not exist, is that not the same thing ?

The sooner a law is brought in to stop airlines from selling seats that do not exist, the better for their customers.

If someone fails to turn up for their flight, the airline has still been paid for that seat.

If they can sell 1.2 seats for every actual seat though, they increase their income by 20% (note - this number is purely an example and I have no idea of actual numbers). If they are unable to do that any further, then they may just increase the cost of tickets by 20% to account for the difference. So to some degree, overbooking may be keeping costs lower for consumers.

Or, the airlines may just be getting greedy. I haven't looked at any numbers on United's profit margins.

I think that overbooking is actually a reasonable practice, if it's dealt with correctly - which means dealing with overbooked flights in a manner that keeps people happy. For example, not sending police in to drag passengers off a plane they've already been boarded on, and not having 'priority' passengers who bump others. There should also probably be some regulation on the matter - ie a cap as to the the degree to which they are allowed to overbook, as well as ensuring that the financial cost of overbooking to the airline is enough that they'll do their utmost best to ensure that they are overbooking in a responsible manner.

If someone fails to turn up for their flight, the airline has still been paid for that seat.

Depends on how much. If the customer doesn't do anything, the airlines may keep the money paid. The airlines can also re-sell that seat to a stand-by just before takeoff. But if the seat wasn't able to be re-sold before takeoff and the customer decides to re-book, then the customer is charged a fee for re-booking but does not have to re-pay the whole amount again (so essentially the fee is what was paid for the unused seat). So depends on the circumstances.

Anyways, just for info, a typical coast-to-coast flight in continental US usually gives a profit of only in the hundreds of dollars. Imagine just one thing that could go wrong and how much that would cost to repair

StrangerlandApr. 13, 2017 - 10:52AM JST

I think that overbooking is actually a reasonable practice, if it's dealt with correctly - which means dealing with overbooked flights in a manner that keeps people happy.

I dissagree with that. If i bought a ticket for a flight then i expect to be on that flight. Not be left behind as it takes off with someone else in the seat i had paid for.

If i failed to get to the departure area on time to book in, i would not expect to get a refund as i was late.

According to this site http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4401096/Experts-reveal-airlines-overbook-seats.html

[QUOTE 1]

In December MailOnline Travel reported on a fascinating TED video that tackles the issue, revealing how overbooking is designed to make an airline as much money as possible

The animated TED Talk video - called Why do airlines sell too many tickets? - by Nina Klietsch unravelled the business model behind overbooking.

Klietsch says that if an airline, for example, sold every seat on a flight with a capacity for 180 (with tickets costing $250 each) and they didn’t sell any extra tickets they’d make $45,000.

But it can bump this revenue up to $48,750 if it sells an extra 15 tickets and there were 15 no-shows.

However, assuming the cost of bumping was $800 per person, in the worst case scenario, if it sold 15 extra tickets and 15 people had to be bumped its revenue would drop to $36,750.

Ms Klietsch explains that in reality there is almost 0 per cent chance that 195 passengers would show up.

The way that airlines work out how many people will show up is through the mathematics of 'binomial distribution'.

She explains: ‘The likelihood of each scenario is found out by using binomial distribution.

‘There is almost 0 per cent chance that 195 passengers will show up, and the probability of 184 showing up is 1.11 per cent.'

Klietsch divulges that 198 tickets is the ideal number of tickets to sell in this example and 'the airline will probably make $48,774. Almost $4,000 more than without overbooking'.

When this principle is applied over hundreds of flights the airline stands to make a handsome profit, which makes all the complicated mathematics worthwhile.

[END QUOTE 1]

So the best thing to get airlines to stop over booking is for everyone to turn up for their flights. Then the airlines would have to pay compension for the bumped people, which would cut into their profits, Then the airlines might decide to sell fewer extra tickets and reduce the chance of being bumped and cutting down their profit margin.

[QUOTE 2]

Bumps can be a very lucrative “gaming” of the system for passengers, as evidenced by someone who made $10,000 dollars in Delta vouchers just this week after getting bumped off of multiple consecutive flights. If passengers have flexibility these bumps are a great way to secure credit towards future (free) travel.

'On the other hand, if they’re not flexible, bumps are a disaster.'

[END QUOTE 2]

So if want to take advantage of airline bumping and end up with free future flight/s then go with it. It probly would work better in the USA than europe as it is one country.

As reported in that aryical, someone made $10,000 dollars in Delta vouchers in a week .

In theory if you took a cash offer each time, then you could make quite a lot of money off the airlines.

Maybe enough to travel around the USA without having to work again in your life.

.